On the jobs board this week are vacancies for a senior fund administrator at Cambridge Associates, a business analyst at Oaktree Capital Group and a deputy director for the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, division of investment.

Private equity funds that invest primarily in developed ex U.S. markets, and those that focus on emerging markets, started the second half of 2013 with solid returns in the third period. Both alternative asset classes generated positive returns for the quarter ending September 30, 2013, with investments in developed markets outperforming those in emerging markets for the period. Returns for funds in both asset classes were up from the prior quarter, according to global institutional investment firm Cambridge Associates.

Thomson Reuters has struck a deal with consulting firm Cambridge Associates to provide the latter’s private equity benchmarking data to subscribers of the Thomson Reuters Eikon service. Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB) and its predecessors, including Venture Economics, collected and published buyout and venture capital return data and statistics for more than two decades.

It’s cause for celebration, if only a little. According to the newest data out of Cambridge Associates, U.S. private equity and venture capital funds bested public equities in the fourth quarter of last year, returning 3.5 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq, the Russell 2000, and the S&P 500 all showed negative returns in comparison.

The private equity overhang dropped substantially in the past three years, according to research by Cambridge Associates. The overhang – uncalled capital available for investment – declined from a peak of $445 billion at the end of 2009 to about $325 billion by the end of 2012, according to a report from Cambridge. A variety of factors explain the decline.

SJF Ventures has held a final close on its $90 million for its third fund, raising more than three times the amount of its second fund, which totaled $28 million, the firm announced Thursday. Investors in the new fund include Citi, Deutsche Bank, MetLife, Prudential Financial, Cambridge Associates, Mercer Consulting, and Trillium Asset Management, SJF said in a press release.

Cleantech returns” is widely seen as an oxymoron. The belief is that nothing much has come from the tens of billions venture capital and private equity funds put into alternative energy and energy efficiency companies since the start of the investment boom.

Owing to low interest rates, pension plans that have increasingly turned to less risky, longer-duration, fixed-income assets may find themselves locking in very low future returns, says a new report out Cambridge Associates.

Venture capital returns creep ahead in fits and starts. Distributions to LPs, however, have gone through the roof. In the third quarter of 2012, they hit their highest level since 2001, and they look poised to go higher in the fourth quarter and beyond.

How are U.S. venture capital funds performing? Depends on which time frame one looks at, and whether one focuses on portfolio value or cash returns. But overall, new data from Cambridge Associates shows VC performance improving over a 10-year time frame but third- quarter write-downs weighed on results.